Nobody's Home
by Menthol Pixie
Summary: All he knows is that he has to get away. (Cursed/amnesiac!Sam)
1. Chapter 1

**Nobody's Home**

 _Summary: All he knows is that he has to get away._

XXX

For a long time, all he knows is that he has to get away. It blocks out every other thought in his head, consumes every fibre of his being, enthrals him completely. He's left with the vague impression of a steady stream of buses and when he finds himself at a station with a pocket full of useless coins instead of a ticket he boosts a car instead. He doesn't know when he learnt how to hot wire but his hands remember exactly what to do.

He doesn't know what it is he has to get away from either but he knows that the further away he gets, the easier it is to breathe around the tightness in his chest. The buzzing static of anxiety in his head softens with each mile he puts between himself and God knows what. He doesn't know where he's going but that doesn't seem to matter much compared to whatever it is he's leaving behind him.

In fact, after a while – days? Weeks? - he realises that he really doesn't know much of anything at all. Not his name or his age, nothing about his past, where he came from, or why he's running. He's always been running. He thinks he should probably be concerned that he can't remember this stuff but he can't seem to bring himself to get upset. This confuses him even more and he pulls his latest stolen car over to the side of the road so he can think.

"What are you doing?" he asks the person to peers back at him from the rear view mirror.

He's young, younger than he feels, definitely less than eighteen, still baby-faced and waiting for a growth spurt. He looks down at himself but his frayed jeans and threadbare hoodie don't offer any clues to his identity, except to solidify the image of a scruffy teenager. There's a backpack on the seat next to him and a vague memory of carrying it bus to bus, stolen car to stolen car. When he looks inside he finds it full of schoolbooks. There's a name printed neatly in the top right corner of the first one he checks.

He turns back to the mirror and wonders if he looks like a Sam W. He thinks he looks like he needs a comb. His hair is dark brown and long enough to curl around his ears and collar, and after who knows how many nights sleeping on buses or in the back seat of cars, it's tangled and spiked up in all directions as if he's just received an electric shock. His eyes are dark too and he stares hard at them. He doesn't recognise his reflection at all.

"Where did you come from?" he asks himself curiously. "Are you Sam?"

The silence offers no answers. He's alone and has every intention of staying that way so maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe none of that matters. He readjusts the mirror and shoves the books back into his bag. Staying still is making his skin itch so he decides to forget about things as inconsequential as his name and starts focusing on the much more important task of escaping. He spends a little time idly wondering what exactly he's escaping from but all that does is make his head hurt. Thinking about pretty much anything makes his head hurt so he turns the radio up, empties his mind, and just drives.

XXX

A Black Sabbath song almost costs him his sanity, and maybe his life. He has no idea why. One second, he is fine, then the song starts and his vision goes white. He slams on the breaks in alarm, and a second later slams into the steering wheel as another car rear-ends his. He's not wearing a seatbelt. A horn blares and his head throbs as he reaches out blindly to turn off the radio. His fingers fumble over dials in a panic and he accidentally turns the volume up.

He has to bite his tongue to keep from screaming. There's something about this song, some vague memory of unfamiliar voices singing along to it, that terrifies all reason out of him. He's shaking uncontrollably, desperate to make it stop, and he can't think, can't see, can't breathe...

He flings the door open, snatches up his bag and all but throws himself out of the car, grazing his palms on the asphalt. There's more honking, someone's yelling at him, he can still hear Ozzy Osbourne's voice, and he thinks he might be in the middle of the road but this doesn't matter nearly as much as getting away from the song. He scrambles to his feet, slings his bag over his shoulder, and runs.

XXX

The night is cold and miserable. Rain pounds against the pavement, flooding the gutters. He doesn't know how long he's been gone – he doesn't remember a time when he wasn't gone – but the drive to keep moving hasn't relented. He has to keep putting space between himself and... something. Something really bad.

But it's late and he's soaked through, freezing cold and exhausted down to his bones. He can't stop himself from sinking down into a doorway, huddled up with his knees hugged to his chest. He'll just rest for a little while. Just until he warms up a bit. Maybe he could risk an hour or two of sleep.

His stomach rumbles resentfully, adding to his body's long list of complaints. He doesn't know when he last ate. There's a dumpster not too far away; maybe there's something edible in there. He stares at it longingly but he's shivering too hard to get up and check it out, and anyway, he has one of his confusing half-memories of an angry baker shooing him away from a different dumpster with threats of calling the police. He doesn't want to have to move on just yet, not while it's raining so hard.

He shrugs out of his backpack and sits cross-legged with it in his lap. He opens the zip and stares down at the, now slightly sodden, schoolbooks, full of handwriting that matches his own, full of homework he doesn't remember doing, from a school he doesn't remember going to, in a place he doesn't remember being. He should throw them away. They don't help him in any way and he could use the bag to carry something more useful.

"Like a blanket," he murmurs to himself, setting his teeth chattering. Rain drips from the tips of his hair, hanging in dark tendrils over his forehead, and splashes down onto the books.

He can't get rid of them. There's a small part of him that's bothered by his complete lack of memories and his near-total indifference to the loss, and the books are the only proof he has that there was a 'before' to all this running and hiding. This wasn't always his life. Maybe one day there will be something other than this.

XXX

There's a car.

A sleek, black car that gives him a heart attack the moment he lays eyes on it. He feels it like a physical blow to his chest, so hard that he stumbles against the shop window he's passing and earns himself a glare from a middle-aged woman with a toddler on her hip. She probably thinks he's on drugs. He's wondered himself whether he might be on drugs, even though he doesn't ever remember taking them. He feels like he could be, like he's not acting like himself, even if he doesn't remember who he is or how he usually acts.

Right now, he doesn't care about this woman or anyone or anything else other than putting as much distance between himself and that car as is humanly possible. He knows, he just knows, that whatever it is he's running from is in that car and he can't let it find him.

It's worse than the Black Sabbath song. This is pure, unadulterated terror, a thousand times stronger than the underlying dread he's lived with day after day for as long as he can remember. He's blind again, running purely on some sort of instinct that guides him automatically past obstacles without needing to use his eyes. His lungs feel like they're being compressed, crushed in a giant fist, and he wants to throw up, but the desire – the compulsion – to flee won't let him stop even for that. His head is filled with the screeching of thousands of nails of chalkboards, a horrible high-pitched screaming -

He slams into a solid shape – brighter than even the white that stole his vision - that must come out of no where, hard enough that he bounces backwards, stumbling towards the ground, but the shape has hands and they latch onto his shoulders, steadying and ensnaring him. He knows by the iron grip that the shape has no intention of letting him go, just like he knows by the spike of pain and sudden crescendo of screeching in his head that this is the end. All that running and he still couldn't get away.

He's screaming hysterical nonsense, fighting with teeth and fingernails, when his backpack is dragged from his shoulders, almost pulling him to the ground as it's wrestled from his back. He tries desperately to hold onto it – _it's his, he needs it, there's something in it that he has to keep_ – but he's overpowered as he lunges after it, a huge weight pouncing on his back and pinning him to the concrete. Hands are riffling through his pockets and he writhes helplessly, scraping his arms against the pavement.

There's someone in front of him, dumping the schoolbooks unceremoniously out of the bag and onto the ground, tearing the zip open so wide he's sure it will never zip up properly again. The person – _thing, monster, who knows, doesn't matter, run run run or it's all over, it's all over now_ – shakes the bag inside out while he screams and struggles.

"Hurry, Dean!" the weight on his back yells.

"I'm trying!" the thing with his bag yells back, and their voices are like thunderclaps inside his brain. He slams his hands over his ears, moaning desperately, and feels something warm spill over his fingers. His nose is bleeding too, he realises. He can taste it between screams, and all he can do is clutch at his head and sob. So this is how he dies.

" _Dean_!"

"I've got it!"

His bag is torn to shreds on the concrete. Something bursts into flames in the hands of the shape beside it, startlingly bright and sudden, a shower of sparks fizzing in his limited vision, which clears just as suddenly to reveal a young man, no more than twenty ( _Dean_ , his mind supplies), dropping the flaming remains of a much smaller, cruder bag ( _hexbag_ ) to the ground, turning to look down at him hopefully -

And Sam remembers everything.

 **END**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 _A/N: Because everyone seemed to want aftermath and I can't stop hurting Sam ;)_

XXX

Sam is filthy, hair matted and snarled, still wearing the clothes he disappeared in almost a month ago; the jeans now tearing open at the knees, the t-shirt greyed with dust. He's covered in a thin layer of grime, one eyebrow split open and splattered with dark, dried blood, his eye blackened. Worse is the fresh blood spilling from his nose and ears while he shrieks like he's on fire, fighting with the wild abandon of a trapped and wounded animal.

" _Dean!_ " John yells, struggling to hold Sam still, grabbing at arms that scrape roughly against the pavement. They'll be picking out gravel later, Dean's sure of it ( _as long as there is a later, as long as they can fix this, damn it, where_ is _it?_ ) but Sam doesn't seem to notice or care, too busy screaming and fighting against Dad's grip, and Jesus, there's so much blood, Dean can smell it as he desperately tears at Sam's backpack. What the fuck is happening? Is this some kind of aneurysm? Will it even stop when he finds -

"I've got it!" The hexbag is sewn into the backpack's lining. Dean tosses the torn remains to the ground and fumbles his lighter from his pocket with shaking, frantic fingers. The hexbag goes up so easily that he singes his fingertips but he doesn't care, it doesn't matter, he's already dropping to his knees, trying to catch sight of his brother's face beneath the solid mass of John Winchester. The bleeding has stopped, so have the screams, cut off with the burst of flame.

"Sam?" he asks anxiously as John clambers to the side, off of Sam's back, though he still keeps a cautious hold on the kid's forearms. Sam flinches his hands over his ears as if he's worried Dean's voice might make his head explode. When it doesn't, Sam looks up at him slowly. He's shaking, covered in blood, wide eyes staring at Dean in shell-shocked disbelief. Dean can see the gears turning, trying to put everything together.

"Sam?" John prompts gently, and Sam flinches again, startled. His gaze moves over to John like he's only just noticed him, despite the fact that moments ago Dad's weight had been smothering him against the pavement.

"... Dad?" Sam asks uncertainly. John helps him to his knees, leaves an arm around his shoulders when Sam sways alarmingly.

"We're here," John says. "Me and Dean, we're here. We've got you."

"I..." Sam swallows, tentatively lowering his hands. He inspects the blood on them shakily, looks down at his filthy clothes with the same expression of bewildered surprise he'd given Dad, like he's seeing himself for the first time. "Where am I?"

"Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska." Dean's voice is wobbly with relief. He strips off his over-shirt and swipes it gently over the blood on his little brother's face, mostly to make sure that the bleeding really has stopped and partly to double check that it really is Sam under all that blood and dirt. "You remember anything?"

"I..." Sam starts again, looking lost. "Um, yeah... I remember everything, I think. It just... it doesn't really make sense now."

"It's okay," John says. "You're back now. We got you back. That's all that matters."

"Where...?" Sam starts to ask again, looking around the alley now, dazed eyes moving over the scattered schoolbooks, the torn backpack, and it strikes Dean that anyone watching – and surely they can't have avoided detection what with the way Sam was _screaming_ – would think they had just witnessed a violent assault on a helpless teenager.

The thought seems to cross Dad's mind too because he glances around warily. "We should find a motel," he says, but he pauses another moment to examine the wound splitting Sam's eyebrow with dark, worried eyes. "This should've been stitched days ago. It's infected."

Dean sweeps a hand over Sam's forehead. It's hot.

Sam blinks at them. "Sorry."

"No, no, it's not your fault." Dad brushes aside the apology. Sam doesn't really seem to know what he's apologizing for anyway. "We just need to get you cleaned up. How did it happen?"

"What happen?" Sam's lost again.

"Your head, Sammy," Dad says patiently. "What happened to your head?"

"Um..." Sam raises a trembling hand to probe at the injury experimentally, eyes losing focus as he thinks. His fingernails are caked with dirt and dried blood, and Dean gently tugs Sam's hand away from the open wound.

"I think it has something to do with _Black Sabbath_ ," Sam offers sincerely. Dean exchanges an anxious look with John. How long has Sam been walking around with a fever? Has he even been eating? How much of this is delirium and how much is left over from the curse?

"Okay," Dad says, "We're going to get a motel room and get you all fixed up, okay, Sammy? Can you stand?"

"I think so," Sam says, right before passing out.

XXX

Dean slowly works his fingers through the snarls in Sam's hair, untangling the knots. The ancient heater is humming in the corner, slowly warming the motel room, and Sam is drowsy, doped up on antibiotics and painkillers he says he doesn't need, his forehead cleaned and bandaged. The worst of the blood has been wiped from his face but even without it Sam looks worse than the ghoul Dad had taken Dean to hunt last summer; so pale his skin is verging on grey, eyes sunken by malnourishment and bright with fever. He's curled under a blanket on his side, head in Dean's lap, watching lazily as Dad gently wipes at his hands and forearms, wincing occasionally when the damp cloth touches the self-inflicted pavement scrapes. He really needs a proper bath – kid kind of smells like a dumpster – but warm water and face cloths will have to do until Sammy looks less likely to keel over in a slight breeze. Anyway, Dean's not ready to give Sam too much privacy, not until he's sure that the spell is really, truly broken and Sam's not about to disappear again.

"Did you get the witch?" Sam asks. His voice is wrecked from all the screaming and slurred a little by exhaustion. Dean's not sure Sam did much talking while he was gone either; Sam seems slightly surprised every time he hears himself speak and most of Dean's questions have been met with vague comments about needing to run or not being allowed to stop.

"Yeah," Dad answers quietly. "We got him."

"Who was it?"

Dean breathes deep, combs his fingers through a clump of tangled hair, remembering the way the man had begged under John's fists. "One of your teachers. Mr Watson."

Sam looks from Dean to Dad questioningly. "How come he went after me?"

"He thought we were on to him," Dean explains, "So he tried to get rid of us by cursing you, figured by the time we'd chased you around America, he'd be long gone. Except he timed it wrong, we didn't even know it was him until he went after you. So he kind of screwed himself."

"Oh." Sam yawns. "I liked Mr Watson."

"He had a lot of people fooled," John says grimly. "You need to sleep. Come on, Dean, let him rest. His hair can wait."

"No!" Sam's hand darts up to grab Dean's knee as he shifts. "Don't go. I don't want to wake up somewhere else again."

"You won't wake up anywhere but here," John assures him, but Sam just clings tighter.

"Please. It's easier to remember when you're here. I don't want to sleep. What if I forget again?"

"We burnt the hex bag, Sammy," Dean says gently, but he settles back down all the same. "You won't forget. But I'll stay with you, okay? There's room for two of us in this bed, especially since there's barely any of you left."

"Couldn't eat," Sam mumbles, relaxing again and releasing his grip on Dean's knee. "Had to run."

"I know, kiddo. We'll sort that out too. Are you hungry now?"

"Uh-uh." Sam shakes his head against Dean's thigh. "How did you find me?"

Dean goes back to fiddling with Sam's hair, plucking out a tangled twig. "The spell wasn't exactly subtle. Once we knew what happened, we caught you on a bunch of security cameras in bus stations – acting like a nut-case, by the way."

Sam quirks a small, self-deprecating grin at the gentle jibe.

"Then we followed the trail of stolen cars for a while... I'm guessing you were the kid who freaked out and almost caused a pile up?"

"Hmm... maybe?" Sam thinks for a moment. "I remember lots of honking... but _Black Sabbath_ was playing and I had to get away. I was supposed to run."

"Well, witnesses said it looked like the suspect was either having a seizure or a psychotic break. We thought that sounded like you."

"Haha," Sam says. His voice is winding down to a murmur now. Dean catches his eyelids drooping a few times despite Sam's desire to stay awake. "I was cursed. I couldn't help it."

"I know." Dean smooths his fingers through a lock of untangled hair. "That's where the black eye came from, right?"

"I have a black eye?" Sam looks sleepily surprised.

"Yeah," Dean says patiently. "I'm guessing your face got pretty well acquainted with a steering wheel. Your eyebrow was split open too but Dad's already fixed that."

"He did?" Sam frowns, raising one of his hands to feel at the bandage taped to his forehead. "I don't remember."

"That'll be the fever," Dad says, dropping the wash cloth into the bowl of lukewarm, now pink-tinged, water. Sam's nails really need scrubbing to get out all the dirt and blood but that's another thing to worry about later. "I just need to bandage these scrapes on your arms, Sammy. Then you can get some proper rest."

"'kay," Sam mumbles, obediently lowering the hand he'd been using to inspect his head. Cleaned, the grazes look raw and angry, pinpricks of blood still sluggishly welling to the surface. Dean watches Dad's gentle hands, steady and efficient, smoothing antiseptic cream along Sam's arms, covering the torn and fragile skin with bandages. His hands linger over Sam when he's done, settling for a reassuring squeeze of his shoulder.

"We'll be here when you wake up, kiddo," he says.

Sam's eyes have slipped closed. "Don' let me go away again," he mumbles, maybe in his sleep. Dean doesn't think he's awake to hear Dad's whispered promise.

"Never."


End file.
